1. Technical Field
The invention relates to event networking. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for targeted event networking.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Event Networking
Millions of people worldwide attend tradeshows, conferences, expositions, conventions, individual or group parties, and other events of such nature that bring them together for various common purposes, such as marketing and selling new products, educational seminars and workshops, charity and fund raising, sports and movies, etc. For all those attending such events, one of the most critical reasons behind their attendance is to make new connections with other event attendees who can then help them in fulfilling professional and/or personal needs.
In today's world, most event hosts organize special networking sessions for certain duration of time to allow event attendees to interact with each other and make new connections. While this is a great way of bringing people with similar interests together under the same roof for networking and other purposes, such an age-old traditional process has several critical limitations that restrict event attendees from maximizing their return on investment of their time, energy, money, etc.
For example, when someone enters a room full of event attendees, there is no way for him to know who in the room meet his needs. In such a scenario, one has to go about introducing oneself to however many people one can within the short duration of time available for networking. This scenario is referred to herein as blind networking because, in the absence of prior detailed knowledge about each attendee, networking leads to blind and random encounters.
Very few event hosts take the extra step of publishing a list of event attendees' names, email addresses, etc. to help the attendees in getting to know each other. But even this has critical limitations because such lists have very limited information and neither serve the purpose of providing a detailed understanding of each attendee's exact needs nor allow comprehensive filtration and organized storage of information concerning need-based attendees to allow such attendees to be contacted before, during, or after an event. Also, such lists give rise to privacy issues because they sometimes' fall into the wrong hands who misuse the sensitive information they contain.
Another set of event management products that are available allow for online registration services, sending of event invitations, and various backend management tasks with regard to attendee data collected for marketing or other promotions for the event hosts, but such products severely lack a focused and comprehensive method and system to allow networking amongst attendees before, during, or after the events. Even worse, some of the major events of the world that draw thousands of attendees, such as a baseball game or a musical concert, have absolutely no method or system to let all like-minded people with similar interests get to know one another before, during, or after the event, unless the attendees themselves take the pain to introduce themselves physically to the limited number of surrounding people during the game or concert. For many, this act of moving from their seats to go about introducing themselves is somewhat odd and very distracting, it takes their focus off the game or concert and into people networking, and the end result is that they refrain from networking, even though they would really love to get to know all those attending, e.g. for reasons of fun, making friends, dating, getting the next big job, or whatever.
Thus, the methods and/or systems adopted traditionally at events are not comprehensive, efficient, ubiquitous, and/or cost-effective enough to serve the purpose of targeted networking.
Profile Content Privacy Control
Another problem associated with event networking is that of privacy. Many computer based software or handheld device based applications, such as those used in e-commerce or e-services today, allow filling of an individual's profile, organization's profile, profile of an object/commodity, and/or any other item or thing to store, display, analyze, or report such information for various reasons. Managing the privacy of such information input, storage, usage, and display has always been a delicate, challenging, and complex issue for both the users of such product, applications, or services and owners. Some automated approaches allow for data encryption and security methods and systems for input, storage, retrieval, and exchange of information but not necessarily the much-needed privacy systems and methods that allow the user to control the content input and its controlled display to others.
The most commonly used privacy system or method so far for profile content control by the user only allow for displaying the entire profile to the public or keeping it private. Another method or system used in some e-services allows displaying the profile to the people, whom they have invited to join their electronic network, based on the degrees of separations. For example, display profile to people in my first degree of connections and/or second degree, and so on. Conversely, a profile can also be hidden or kept private from people in such network based on degrees of separation.
Thus, privacy issues are a major concern in event networking.
Integration with a Chat Application or Instant Messenger
Another concern with regard to event networking is that of communication. The evolution of online chat applications and instant messengers in the recent years has had a hugely positive impact in the lives of the people worldwide. As the usage of Internet increases, the ubiquitous nature of the chat and instant messenger products is successfully bringing people closer to each other beyond the physical limitations of time and space.
There have been remarkable inventions in chat and instant messaging. However, a starkly visible problem in the currently available chat/instant messaging products or services is that there is yet no method and system of integration to finding a meeting place or other businesses/services in a particular location and also have an integrated ability to have a online meeting, directly from within the chat application or instant messaging system in one step.
For example, Yahoo offered a chat/instant messaging product for businesses called Business Messenger that was recently discontinued, and that had an online meeting product called Web-ex integrated into the messenger. This product allowed corporate executives to chat, share files, and open up a file which all the participants could simultaneously read and see live as the edits were made or as demonstrated by the host. However, a painful problem that might have been traditionally overlooked is that the messenger still lacked the ability to be able to find instantly, from within the chat application in one step, a common meeting place for all the participants in the chat if they all decided to meet in person.
Another example is the popular Yahoo messenger for the individuals worldwide that is available for free download on yahoo.com. The only way to find a meeting place, such as a coffee shop, from within the chat application in the US in a particular city, such as San Jose, is to type appropriate keywords in the search bar built in the bottom of the instant messenger and click a search button. This opens up another browser page with the results.
On the top of that page is the link to local which one then clicks, types in the address or city or state, and hits search again to narrow down the results. Thus, clearly it is a multiple step, time consuming process, especially if other participants in the chat might be waiting for this person to tell them a meeting place where all can meet.
In fact, if one wants to find a meeting place in Paris using Yahoo chat/instant messaging from the U.S. it is even more convoluted and sometimes even impossible.
Sales and Revenue Generation in E-Commerce or E-Services Providing Directory Services or Local Listings
Another concern with event networking is the use of such networking to produce sales and generate revenue by providing directory service or local listing to personal network participants. The Internet is fast penetrating into human lives resulting in a huge dependency on this medium by the people worldwide for almost all kinds of daily activities, such as finding books, buying and selling items, travel/transportation/lodging reservations, conducting searches on all kinds of topics, etc. When it comes to finding a coffee shop or address of a hotel in a city, people in today's Internet era heavily resort to e-commerce sites, such as Yahoo! yellow pages or Google's new service called Google local. Such sites get millions of hits worldwide every month and have successfully demonstrated huge win-win scenarios using targeted advertising as a revenue stream for the consumer and the advertiser. As far as revenue generation is concerned, there is a consistent need for companies all over the world to keep on innovating new methods and systems of generating revenues while lowering the expenses, increasing profitability, and thus maximizing their return on investment.
To increase sales and generate revenues, it is needless to say that companies have a sales force wherein a significant amount of money is spent in hiring, training, and employing the right sales people. However, not all companies are blessed with huge funds, especially in the early years of their incorporation, such that they are able to employ a large number of sales people to meet their goals. This can severely constrict a company's growth rate or even lead them to set goals based on the limited resources available, which could specifically even factor in the number of sales people available during that period. Although, some may consider this as a traditional problem that all early stage companies go through, however, today's fast changing economic conditions worldwide constantly demand innovative approaches to fasten the revenue generation roadmap while keeping the expenses low and still solving the traditionally overlooked severe bottlenecks. It would be advantageous to provide a technique that addresses such issues.